Alabama Monsters Try to Deny Raped 12-year old an Abortion

For all the horrible things happening on the national stage these days, it’s easy to miss some truly horrifying antics going on at the local level. Today I want to draw your attention to Alabama, where a 12-year old girl was raped by an adult family member and became pregnant. She wanted the fetus aborted, but in Alabama minors need permission from a parent in order to get abortions. For the record, minors don’t need permission to give birth to a human child that they will need to care for for the following 18 years or so, even if they need to drop out of school to do it.

The 12-year old, who again was raped by a family member, was removed from her home due to neglect and physical abuse and so couldn’t get parental permission for the abortion. To get this, she had to petition juvenile court, where a judge ruled that she could get the abortion. So far so good, sort of, right?

Unfortunately, the county district attorney decided that they didn’t like that, and forced an appeals court to weigh in. The appeals court agreed with the lower court and allowed the abortion to happen, but unfortunately, I can’t name and shame the attorney who pushed the issue because the county is anonymous, to protect the identity of the girl.

Luckily, there are two idiots just begging to be named and shamed, so I’ll do that now: Win Johnson, former legal director for the Administrative Office of Courts, and Lorie Mullins, executive director of an Alabama “crisis pregnancy” center that tricks pregnant women into keeping their fetuses when they may want an abortion. These two pieces of human garbage held a press conference on the courthouse steps shaming both the court and the girl for deciding to abort the result of incestual rape.

Johnson and Mullins said the girl was too immature to make a decision about abortion, conveniently forgetting to mention whether or not they think a 12-year old is mature enough to RAISE A CHILD who is the product of an adult man raping her.

Mullins even has the gall to say, “She probably has trouble deciding what shirt to wear to school,” as though she will be better off deciding what shirt her CHILD will wear every day. The child who, again, was the product of incestual rape. And by the way, even if she gave the child up for adoption, this 12-year old child would still risk the high chance of medical complications that would come from a child so young giving birth, like high blood pressure, preeclampsia that can lead to organ damage, and anemia. Risks to the baby (I nearly said “child” here but realized that could be confused with the mother) include low birth weight and early delivery. Then there are all the normal pregnancy complications that can arise, like incontinence and infection and post-partum depression.

Oh, and let’s not forget the sheer horror of going through middle school while pregnant. Imagine needing a hall pass every time you need to urinate, or missing lessons every time you’re nauseated. It’s a horrific idea and Mullins and Johnson are absolutely disgusting for shaming a child for not wanting to sign up for that.

So I’m glad that the Alabama courts actually made the right decision twice in this case, but absolutely disgusted that people like Mullins and Johnson were able to get the spotlight on them for anything other than a rightful bashing.

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca leads a team of skeptical female activists at Skepchick.org. She travels around the world delivering entertaining talks on science, atheism, feminism, and skepticism. There is currently an asteroid orbiting the sun with her name on it. You can follow her every fascinating move on Twitter or on Google+.

Fund the New Server

The Skepchick Network is a collection of smart and often sarcastic blogs focused on science and critical thinking. The original site is Skepchick.org, founded by Rebecca Watson in 2005 to discuss women’s issues from a skeptical standpoint.